To facilitate collection of a large number of golf balls from a fairway, it is known to use golf ball retrievers. One type of golf ball retriever uses a number of spaced discs mounted to a common shaft. The spacing between the discs corresponds to the width of a golf ball so that as the discs move over a ground surface, golf balls are caught between adjacent discs. The golf balls are subsequently dislodged by a dislodging finger and are transferred to a collecting basket. The discs can either be ground engaging or can be mounted to a common shaft which terminates with a pair of ground engaging wheels to space the discs slightly above the ground surface. Devices of this type are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,995,759 (Hollrock), 3,823,838 (Gustafsson), 3,175,714 (Wittik), 2,792,955 (Summer), 2,365,540 (Fonken) and 4,792,271 (Akel).
Many known retrieving units suffer from the disadvantage that they are towed behind a tractor or like vehicle. The tractor can run over golf balls which makes them difficult or impossible to collect by the spaced discs. My earlier U.S. patent (Tucek U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,383) discloses such a towed vehicle, as does Woodall (U.S. Pat. No. 2,812,871).
Golf ball retrieving assemblies which are pushed in front of a pushing vehicle such as a tractor or the like are also known. Gustafsson (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,664,532 and 3,823,838) and also Hollrock (U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,759) disclose such pushed retrieving assemblies.
While pushed retrieving assemblies have the advantage that the pushing vehicle does not run over the golf balls before they are collected, existing assemblies still suffer from a number of disadvantages primarily the cost and complexity of the unit, and the inability of the retrievers to accurately track undulations along a fairway. In my earlier patent (Tucek U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,383) I provided an arrangement having wheels which individually tracked a ground surface. While the tracking was considered adequate, by having each wheel tracking a ground surface, the apparatus was relatively complex and expensive to manufacture.
Existing pushed retrievers usually comprise a single large unit or a number of smaller units linked together. The unit or units can be several meters long and each unit has a shaft to which the discs or wheels are mounted. By having a large single unit pushed in front of a vehicle, or smaller units connected together, it is difficult to accurately track undulations along a fairway. That is, the single unit or linked units will merely pass over and not into gulleys, small depressions and the like. Examples of large single units or smaller interconnected units are described in Woodall (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,812,871 and 3,784,037).
Another disadvantage with large or smaller linked units is in turning the entire assembly. When such an assembly is turned, the outer wheels turn more than the inner wheels and if the wheels are mounted to a common shaft, damage to the fairway will occur. Crabbing also occurs. Another disadvantage with existing golf ball retrieving assemblies is the use of angled draw bars which tend to cause a retrieving unit to adopt a sideways bias when being pushed or pulled along a fairway.